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COVENTRY ARCHIVES: GUIDE TO POOR LAW AND ASSOCIATED

RECORDS

Coventry Archives is located in the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Jordan Well, Coventry, CV1 5QP.

Admission to both the Reading Room and Research Room is free. Documents and books can be

consulted without charge, but a charge is made for photocopying or the taking of digital images. Visitors

are required to make an appointment to view original documents in the Research Room. Material in

the Reading Room is available without the need of an appointment.

Opening hours: The Coventry Archives Reading Room and Research Room are open, 10.30 am – 3.30pm,

Wednesdays – Fridays; the Reading Room is also open on alternate Saturdays, 10.30 am – 3.30pm.

Please refer to the Herbert website at www.theherbert.org for further details, or telephone on 02476

237583.

Introduction

By 1580, a house of correction (or “bridewell”) had been established at Bablake to put the unemployed

to work. Parish rates for poor relief under the “old poor law” were levied by the seventeenth century.

In both the city parishes of Holy Trinity and St Michael’s workhouses changed their buildings and the

organisations remained separate until a local Act united them.

The national 1834 Act which inaugurated the “new poor law”, introduced new records into the city but

the administration stayed within the local Act until 1874. The new poor law system, now nationally

controlled, lasted until 1930. The City Council’s Public Assistance Committee took charge from that date

until the National Assistance Act of 1948 again took the responsibility away from local government.

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Coventry's present-day suburbs administered their poor relief on a parish basis until the 1834 Act. All

were taken into the Foleshill Union, with some exceptions: those based in Coundon hamlet and Allesley

parish went to Meriden Union. Styvechale and Stoneleigh parishes (the latter embracing the swathe of

land from Finham to Tile Hill) went into Warwick Union. Despite Coventry's administrative expansions

between 1890 and 1928, the new suburbs stayed within their old unions. From 1930, areas

administratively already within Coventry were served by the Public Assistance Committee, as were

other areas upon coming within the city boundary in 1932. For more information see the Victoria

County History of Warwickshire Vol. VIII p.3 for the boundary-changes; the same book's pp.40-124

passim for the outlying parishes, and pp.275-277 for the city-centre. Another noteworthy source is

W.E.Tate's The Parish Chest: a study of the records of parochial administration in England, the best

detailed guide to poor law records.

The dormitory at

Coventry Workhouse,

1914

Coventry City Poor Relief to 1835

In 1801, the Coventry Guardians of the Poor

acquired the Carmelite friary of Whitefriars

at London Road and converted it into a

workhouse. Within three years all of the

city’s poor were being sent there and while

the directors operated a fairly enlightened

regime, their approach was at odds with

attitudes of such bodies as the Poor Law

Commission.

It was the Commission’s belief that the

general standard of comfort at Coventry was

too high, and that the best way to deter the

poor from seeking refuge was to impose

harsh conditions on its inmates. The

Coventry Guardians eventually yielded to

the Commission’s wishes, and families were

separated on admission, were obliged to

wear uniforms, and worked a twelve hour

shift with an hour for lunch. In later years

an infirmary at the site administered to the

sick, and both the workhouse and infirmary

remained under the auspices of the

Guardians until 1930, when they passed

into the hands of the city’s public health

department. They remained in local

authority hands until the passing of the

1948 National Assistance Act, one of the

founding principles of what later became

known as the welfare state.

A Brief Word About The

Coventry Workhouse

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The borough archive’s Corporation Powers and Cases section, Baker subsection (BA/F/I) lists records

concerned with the administration of the House of Correction, 1580 – 1586. Other records relating to

the poor law include:

BA/E/B/50/1-5

Recommendations for appointments of overseers of the poor and other parish officers, 1823

BA/E/B/52-61

Settlement and apprenticeship, 1659-1833.

BA/H/I

Records, 1575-1831.

BA/H/Q/A79/217

From Earl of Denbigh to Alderman Clarke about giving his fee as recorder to the poor, 1648.

PA5

Settlement-certificate re. Berkswell and Coventry, 1699.

PA143

Overseers of the Poor, St. Michael's Parish - accounts and assessments, 1732-1830.

PA144

St. Michael's and Holy Trinity Parishes - guardians' minute-book, 1801-1861.

PA173

Holy Trinity Parish Workhouse - site-deeds, 1726-1803.

PA524

Attorney’s bills, 1787-1792.

Coventry Suburbs Poor Relief to 1835

BA/E/B/63

County orders, 1760-1838.

PA133

Stoke Vestry - minutes, 1820-1835.

PA295

Allesley Civil Parish, 1651-1859.

PA321

Foleshill overseers - poor rate returns, 1820-1834.

Coventry City Poor Relief, 1835-1930

BA/E/B/55

Recommendations and forms of order for removal of Irish and Scottish paupers to Liverpool, 1838

Coventry Board of Guardians Records

In a folder in the Coventry Archives Research room entitled Superseded Local Authorities is a list of

Coventry Board of Guardians records (reference SLA/6), including:-

SLA/6/1

Minutes of the Board of Guardians, 1844-1930;

SLA/6/13

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Admission and discharge registers, 1853-1946

Please note that some chronological gaps do exist in these registers, and some of the more recent

registers will be unavailable for viewing due to data protection laws. Those registers open to public

scrutiny, however, follow a general format: the week's admissions are arranged on the left hand side

of the register, and include such details as date, day of week, name of inmate, next meal after

admission, calling, religion, year of birth, parish from which admitted, by whose order admitted, date

of order, name of parent if born in workhouse, and observations (e.g. destitute). Details of the week's

discharges are arranged on the right hand side of the register and include date, day of the week, last

meal before discharge, how discharged (e.g. sent to Hatton Asylum, Meriden Union, discharged at own

request), column for death, parish from which admitted; in the observation column there are a few

entries containing addresses.

SLA/6/17

Registers of deaths, 1845-1943

Includes: date of death, name, age, whence admitted, certified cause of death, when and where buried

and master's initials and date

SLA/6/16

Registers of births, 1875 – 1933

Includes the following entries: date of birth; sex; legitimate or illegitimate; parents or mother (name;

whence admitted); Christian name; when and where baptised; remarks; master's initials & date

SLA/6/30

Plans of the Workhouse at Whitefriars, 1856-1904.

See also:

PA476

Coventry Board of Guardians (Poor Law Union) - correspondence, plans and tenders, 1894-1925.

PA2388

Coventry Board of Guardians – photograph, taken on the last day of the Board’s existence

PA744

Coventry Union House of Industry – inventory of effects, 1845.

PA772

Coventry Poor Law Union, list of Guardians, 1813-1890; contract for workhouse boiler, 1906.

PA1803

“Coventry Standard” cuttings, 1855-1866 (photocopies). Also available in microfilm format in the

newspaper cabinets, Coventry Archives Reading Room

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Printed, general sources:

Selected books/pamphlets on the general history of poor law in Coventry (ref. JN362.5)

“The Relief of the Poor in Coventry, 1830 – 1863” by Peter Searsby;

“The Operation of the Poor Laws in the County and City of Coventry, 1601 – 1900”, edited by R Morris

(education pack);

John Carter, “Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Law with the minutes of evidence, 1817”;

“City of Coventry Poor Law Act, 1859”;

“Ninth Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, 1843”;

“Memories of London Road Institution,” by EA Evans;

“Workhouse Children,” by Rosemary Hall;

“Distressed Weavers, Deserted Wives and Fever Cases: an analysis of admissions to the Coventry

Workhouse,” by Rosemary Hall

Foleshill Union Workhouse

In the Superseded Local

Authorities folder is a list of

Foleshill Board of Guardians

records including:-

SLA/11/1

Minutes of the Board of

Guardians, 1837-1930.

SLA/11/3

School Attendance Committee

minutes, 1877-1903.

The collection also includes other

administrative and financial

records but no registers of

admissions, discharge, death etc.

PA380

Foleshill Union - workhouse

punishment book, 1864-1900 (a

printed version of this is

available in the Reading Room

pamphlet collection, reference

JN362.5)

Front page of the Foleshill Union Act,

1836

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Parochial records, including those for overseers of the poor, and dealing with some aspects of city-

centre poor law administration as well as suburban, are at:

Warwickshire County Record Office

Priory Park

Cape Road

Warwick, CV34 4JS.

Telephone: 01926 412735

E-mail: recordoffice@warwickshire.gov.uk

There is a list of parish records held at Warwick in the Coventry Archives Reading Room. Warwick also

holds the records of the Meriden and Warwick Poor Law Unions.

For central government's view of the "new poor law" local scene, contact:

National Archives

Kew, Richmond, Surrey,

TW9 4DU

+44 (0) 20 8876 3444

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

This link provides a brief research guide to Poor Law records:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/poverty-poor-laws

Site of the Coventry Workhouse, 1906